Still undecided on changing the earlier proposal of market-based pricing policy for the essential drugs or capping the prices according to the government procurement as suggested by many stakeholders, the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) is likely to forward all options to the Group of Ministers (GoM) for the final say.

The Department sources however reiterated that the final draft is being worked out and would be submitted to the GoM within the stipulated time as assured to the Supreme Court. The case will come up for hearing on March 13 and the DoP is expected to forward the final recommendations to the GoM before that.

The move to forward all key suggestions to the GoM comes in the wake of Health Ministry opposing the original draft proposal which suggested pricing of essential drugs based on the average of the three bestselling brands. Health Ministry suggested that the pricing should be based either the average price of three cheapest brands or the government’s bulk procurement price to uphold the principle of affordability.

However, it is learnt that the industry has already sent signals of opposition against capping the prices based on the cheapest drugs as it would affect the profit volumes of big players in the market. Hence the Department does not want to make a final call on the matter, sources revealed.

Another suggestion under active consideration of the Department is to fix the prices of essential drugs based on the rates at which the government procures drugs and allowing a top-up margin. However, the industry and the department had already fought for long on fixing the top-up margin as the industry was not ready to accept even 300-500 per cent margin.

Fearing the backlash from the industry and under pressure from the Health Ministry, the DoP now would pass on the recommendations to the GoM headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar.

Other members of the GoM are Ghulam Nabi Azad, minister of health and family welfare; Kapil Sibal, minister of human resource development and communications and information technology; Anand Sharma, minister of commerce and industry; M K Alagiri, minister of chemicals and fertilisers; Salman Khurshid, minister of law and justice and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman, Planning Commission.